OMAHA, Neb.—To play winning baseball means making all the little plays. When even one of those goes wrong it can lead to disaster, and in this case a sudden end to a great season.
Arizona’s pitching and defense fell apart equally in the bottom of the 8th inning on Sunday afternoon at Charles Schwab Field Omaha, allowing Louisville to score six runs for an 8-3 victory. The loss eliminates the Wildcats (44-21) from the College World Series after two games and runs their CWS losing streak to six dating back to 2016.
“Obviously it’s not the way you want it to end,” said UA coach Chip Hale, whose team lost for the first time this season when taking a lead into the 8th or later. “Really the only way you want it to end is to be the champion. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t have a great season.”
The UA led 3-2 entering the bottom of the 8th, a lead it had tenuously held since scoring twice in the top of the 1st. But from the get go things went bad, starting with an error by shortstop Mason White that began a run of four consecutive Cardinals reaching base.
Garrett Hicks, who was tagged with the loss in both CWS games, allowed a single to put the go-ahead run on base and was replaced by Tony Pluta. But that didn’t change the bad luck as Pluta’s second pitch was blooped to short right-center, loading the bases, and then Zion Rose flared one down the right field line to score two and give Louisville a 4-3 lead.
It only got worse from there. After getting one out on a bounder to first that led to a rundown between third and home, No. 9 hitter Kamau Neighbors—who was 4 for 4—singled in a run. Then the Cardinals (41-23) nearly ran into an out when Alex Alicea missed a sign on a squeeze play and another runners was caught in a pickle.
This time, though, Pluta’s tag near home dislodged the ball for a second error in the inning, and Louisville then successfully scored on a squeeze before adding another run on a single.
“Once the tide turned, that’s where Louisville takes advantage of you,” Hale said. “They’re really good with the bunting. They’re really good with the base running. They put a lot of pressure on you. While we were ahead, we kept them at bay. But you’ve got to give them credit. Once they got the chance, they saw the opening like we did during the other games during the playoffs. They really took advantage of it.”
Pluta, who was named NCBWA Stopper of the Year on Friday, was charged with four runs but only one was earned. It was the first runs he’d allowed since April 1.
Arizona made Louisville starter Ethan Eberle work, seeing 28 pitches in the 1st and 72 in 3.2 innings. The opening at-bats saw Aaron Walton and White both get hit by pitches ahead of Adonys Guzman, who singled home Walton for a 1-0 lead, but on the same play White was thrown out trying to advance to third, one of three outs the Wildcats made on the basepaths.
Another baserunning miscue came in the 6th when Mihalakis tried to tag from second on a fly out to left and was out easily. That was immediately after Andrew Cain popped a sacrifice bunt attempt directly to Louisville’s pitcher after he came in with two on and none out.
“We just did a lot of things that were uncharacteristic of us during this run,” Hale said. “People ask all the time, you were struggling a little bit in the middle of the year, and we played a lot like this. We made a lot of base unning mistakes. We didn’t execute on bunt plays. Twice they bunted the ball, we didn’t get an out, a run-down. There were so many things.”
Senior second baseman Garen Caulfield had a 2-out single in the 1st to put Arizona up 2-0. He went 2 for 4 and finishes his UA career second in both at-bats (877) and games played (231) to Hale.
“That’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had playing baseball this last month,” Caulfield said. “I’m super grateful for it.”
Guzman, who went 5 for 8 in the World Series and 18 of 43 during the postseason including the Big 12 Tournament, hit a solo home run over the bullpen in left with two out in the 3rd to put the UA up 3-1. The homer came one pitch after he got a gift call on a 1-2 count to keep the at-bat alive.
After that, though, Arizona couldn’t string enough good at-bats together. It left eight runners on base over the final five frames, getting two on four times in that span without scoring.
Yet the Wildcats stayed ahead thanks to another poised performance from freshman Smith Bailey. He allowed two runs in 6-plus innings, his fourth quality start in the last five outings.
“I’m just going to take from this experience to be a leader for our team next year and try to bring us back next year and hopefully get a little bit of a different result,” said Bailey, whose 89 innings pitched are 6th-most by a UA true freshman since 2000.
Arizona’s last win at the CWS came in Game 1 of the 2016 championship series to Coastal Carolina before it dropped the next two. The Wildcats also went 0-2 in 2021.
Now comes an offseason where the Wildcats are likely to lose most of their starting batting order, either to graduation or the MLB Draft. Only two starters are not draft-eligible, but some juniors could return depending on how the draft goes, and Arizona is set to return Bailey and No. 1 starter Owen Kramkowski.
“I just say keep going,” senior first baseman Tommy Splaine said of his younger teammates. “All those guys have done a terrific job. Just stick with it. And I guess the mistakes and challenges that you make, you really do learn from.”